Citadel Dispatch

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EPISODE: 50

BLOCK: 718215

PRICE: 2338 sats per dollar

TOPICS: bitcoin nodes, raspibolt, hardware tradeoffs, lightning tradeoffs, migrating nodes, transaction fees, raspibolt.org

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[00:00:02] Unknown:

On WealthTrack, why investment legend Bill Miller has gone really big on Bitcoin. I think the average investor should ask himself or herself, what do you have in your portfolio   that has this kind of track record? Number 1, is so is very, very under penetrated,   can provide a service of insurance against financial catastrophe that no one else can provide,   and, and can go up 10 times or 50 times. The answer is nothing. Why Bill Miller has gone big on Bitcoin is on Consuelo Mack WealthTrack.  

[00:00:30] Unknown:

Hello, and welcome to this edition of WEALTHTRACK. I'm Consuelo Mack. This week is part 2 of our interview with legendary value investor Bill Miller.   As longtime WEALTHTRACK viewers know, Miller has been a guest of ours since our launch in 2,005   and doesn't do many TV interviews.   As he told me recently,   time is his scarcest resource. So we are delighted that he is with us again this week.   Miller is the founder, owner and chief investment officer of Miller Value Partners,   a firm he founded in 1999   while working at Legg Mason, but took over completely in 2017.   As most of you know, Miller holds the unbeaten   S and P 500   for 15 consecutive   years from 1991   to 2,005   with the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust Fund. His flagship, Miller Opportunity Trust Fund, which he created in 1999   and has co managed with Samantha Macklemore since 2014,   has $2,400,000,000   in assets and has had many market beating years interspersed with some sizable declines.  

But today's conversation is not about Miller Opportunity Trust. It's about his personal portfolio.   And here's the headline.   Half of Miller's personal net worth is in bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrency   investments.   And it's leveraged.   I asked Miller why he has gone so big on Bitcoin   in his personal account.  

[00:01:57] Unknown:

I'd say it's a combination of of things as it would have to be to allow something to get that bigger part of your portfolio because,   you know, it's it it goes against many of the tenants of, of,   financial discipline.   On the other hand, the the people that actually   are the richest people in the country,   all are massively concentrated. You know,   Buffett and Berkshire, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg.   So they're not they're not widely diversified, but they may be they're they're highly concentrated.   And I think that's because they have a high degree of confidence or or have a high degree of confidence in the in the value of those investments. But my my thinking here was that,   I I heard a talk on on Bitcoin given by the person who's known as patient 0   in the Bitcoin world, Wences Casares.  

And,   Wences   gave a talk at at the Allen Company Sun Valley Conference,   and he let off his talk. This is 2014,   I wanna say.   He let off his talk by saying that they're asking how anybody owned Bitcoin. No. Nobody in the audience owned it except for him.   And did anybody know what it was? And a few scattered hands went up.   And he said, well, let me explain to you,   why I own Bitcoin.   And he said, and it's because   I I understand why you wouldn't understand it because you all live in America,   and you have a rule of law, and you have, you know, orderly governments.   And in most in most times, you have, you know, low relatively low inflation and a prosperous economy.  

And he said, but I'm from Argentina,   and my family's been there a 150 years. And we've been wiped out 4 separate times by the Argentinian government seizing our assets, nationalizing the banks, inflating us out with hyperinflation.   And he said, so Bitcoin   can't be touched by the government.   It's a it's a peer to peer decentralized   independent   network. It's a ledger that records every transaction that's public. It's immutable.   And he said, so the government if you have Bitcoin, the government cannot take it away from you. And he he said, so it's it's an think of it as an insurance policy.   And he went into it and talked about it. And I thought, you know and he talked about putting 1% of your liquid net worth in Bitcoin, and I thought that was sensible.  

He laid out what it what it could do if it worked. He he said then that it was very risky because then it was about $200.   But I I bought some then and   I bought a little bit more over time and it became   $500, and then I stopped buying it. And I didn't buy it for years until just the spring of this year. It hit a $66,000   high price.   And then in 4 weeks, it was in half.   Now Bitcoin has gone up on average a 170%   a year for the last 11 years.   Now but that's not every year. It's just an average. It's gone down 3 different times by more than 80%.   So that's that is, you know, a very volatile and therefore very dangerous if you're especially if you're levered. You can be if you're on some of these exchanges. They'll loan you 50 to 1 on on your Bitcoin.  

But   each time it's been stopped at around the 80 low eighties level, and it's come back. And this this time, I started buying it again at $30,000   down from 66.   And my reasoning was   there's a lot more people using it now. There's a lot more money going into it in the venture capital world. There are a lot of people who are skeptics who are now at least, trying it out. And, and I thought maybe maybe 50% is a good stopping point for it. But if it goes about down 80 or 85, I'll buy it all the way down. Well, it did stop right around 50% and slowly started its way   back up again. But I I bought a fair amount, at, you know, at the $30,000   range and have been adding to various Bitcoin related,   investments since then.  



[00:06:12] Unknown:

Happy Bitcoin Tuesday, freaks.   It's your boy Odell here for Citadel dispatch   50. It's been 50 Citadel Dispatches. Let's fucking go. I hope you guys appreciated the little cameo by my dogs,   during that intro clip.   City of Dispatch is an interactive live show about Bitcoin distributed systems, privacy, and open source software.   I want to do a quick shout out to all the supporters of the show who keep this show,   ad free and sponsor free, focused purely on actionable Bitcoin discussion.   You guys make this show possible, and I really do appreciate all the support.   The easiest way to support the show is via podcasting 2 point o apps. My two favorite are fountain podcasts   and Breeze Wallet.  

You simply download the app, load it up with sats, search for serial dispatch, and then while you listen, to the podcast, you're able to stream Sats directly to my note. It's really fucking cool.   Literally, any day of the week, I can just sign in.   I can just open up my my Bitcoin node, and I just see a ton of I just I just see SAP payments coming in, you know, 3 sats per minute, 5 sats per minute, 20 sats per minute,   just streaming into my node. It's really   really cool, rewarding experience to to see that happen.   And also, as always,   huge shout out to the freaks who join us in the live chat every week.  

You can access the live chat through the Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch streams.   You can also   view   this is the first little dispatch that you're able to view it directly on bitcoin tv.com   as well. Unfortunately, if you participate   in the livestream through Bitcoin TV, you cannot actually be a part of the live chat.   Gonna try and figure out a way to to make that work, but it is an option now.   And as always,   you can listen to the podcast, on your favorite podcasting app,   by just searching Citadel Dispatch or   watching the archives on bitcointv.com,   YouTube, and Twitch.  

So with all that said,   this is an episode that I am very excited about.   It should be a really fun conversation.   We have   long time many time guest,   Open Arms here with us. Open Arms, how's it going?  

[00:08:35] Unknown:

Ohio. It's, honored to be here again.  

[00:08:39] Unknown:

The honor is all mine. Thank you for joining us. And,   we have Statikus,   lead maintainer of the raspi bolt project here.   The focus of today's conversation   will be Bitcoin nodes and specifically the raspi bolt project. How's it going, Staticus?  

[00:08:55] Unknown:

Hey, Matt. It's going great. Thanks.  

[00:08:57] Unknown:

Cheers.   Well, let's fucking do this. So where do you guys wanna start? What is the raspybold project, and why should people care?  

[00:09:06] Unknown:

I guess I can open with that one. So   to understand where the Raspberry Bolt   comes from,   I think   it's important to realize that it's it's it's been my personal project   for a long time.   So it's basically me   documenting my own learnings.   This is why it started out as a medium article back in the days, like, I don't know, 2017   or so,   how to set up   a bitcoin full node with lightning on a Raspberry Pi.   So back then, there was that wasn't really a thing. So I just   tried to figure it out myself, had some other   articles. Damien Me, for example, had some cool stuff online.   But it just grew from there. I moved it over to GitHub,   started answering   issues and pull requests, all that stuff.  

So it's still a guide.   It's not something you can download. It's really,   something you do yourself.   But   it's,   I think, a pretty decent   reference guide   how to set up the Raspberry Pi   Bitcoin full node you want to have   and build yourself.  

[00:10:31] Unknown:

So   we had   I think we've had,   I mean, I had open arms on   the show to discuss.   We had a big panel with a bunch of the leading node project implementations   in terms of   these actual dedicated 247 nodes,   that you run on dedicated hardware, oftentimes Raspberry Pi, sometimes, you know, other single board chips.   We had that. We also had,   Nix Bitcoin on separately.   So the freaks are very much aware of,   this this concept of running a, you know, a a 247   Bitcoin node,   on a   dedicated machine   that is cheap hardware.   So   I'm I'm looking forward to diving deep in the weeds here. I I think, you know, most of the freaks are prepared for that and enjoy that type of conversation.   But before we get there, I mean,   it is almost it has been normalized. Somehow, it's been normalized,   in a good way, this this concept. But when Raspberry Bolt when you first started working on on the Raspberry Bolt project,   I   was was it the first main,   I guess, guide or project to run a raspi   lightning  

[00:11:59] Unknown:

node? I I think in a way you can say that.   There are   articles   back then, but that were more like one time things. So not ongoing projects.   And   I I did that myself,   on medium. But I think as soon as I moved it over to GitHub and,   like, did continuous improvements,   updates,   seem to it that all the download links are always up to date. I think back then, it was the first   live   guide, if you can say that.   That was always up to date and actually   started to to get some, like, people involved and follow follow along.  

[00:12:47] Unknown:

I mean, we've come we've come tremendously far. Did you did you say when you started it?  

[00:12:54] Unknown:

So I I tried to think back. I'm not quite sure, but I think,   I started tinkering. So I've been working with Raspberry Pis for a long time for my   streaming client for retro Pis for console games and stuff like that.   So I was basically   pissed off that every time I wanted to connect to pit Bitcoin core, I first had to sync, like, I don't know, hours   until I could,   verify my own transactions. So it came naturally   to this concept of a 247 note,   and building on a Raspberry Pi for me was pretty natural.   And that was also, I think, in the summer of 2017,   like, during the block size wars. Like, there was UASF, the Node Fix movement.  

And that also got me, like, thinking and appreciating   a lot   how important   running your own Bitcoin node is for keeping Bitcoin decentralized.   I think this is why I also started to dig deeper into it and all also started to publicly,   document my learnings.  

[00:14:06] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean so   I guess   yeah. So, I mean, it's been about probably, like, 3 years,   since   Raspberry Bolt, first started.  

[00:14:17] Unknown:

Yeah. I guess so. I mean, back then, it was like I think it started pretty quickly with lightning, but it was still on test net   then. And I actually started it with Eclair.   But I think LND then was the 1st lightning implementation that switched to mainnet. So   I basically   just   kicked out Eclair and,   switched to LND back then.  

[00:14:45] Unknown:

That's interesting. I wonder if that I mean, that's gotta be one of the main reasons LND became such a dominant implementation. Right?   That it was just first to go mainnet.  

[00:14:55] Unknown:

Yeah. And I guess for all the web devs, it's also just much more, like,   common to use WebSockets. So if if you look at c lightning,   you use, like,   Linux sockets and stuff like that. I think it's much harder to build a web application on top of that. And LND just was, like, more familiar, I think, to whole to the whole deaf community.   Cool.  

[00:15:21] Unknown:

So open arms, where do you think we should go from here?  

[00:15:26] Unknown:

No. I I I loved loved the deep dive in history. I just, there is a link   I I posted in the chat about, the history of lightning from brainstorm to beta. So, basically, it goes   as it   as   it goes through the history, it's basically 2018,   March 20   28th when,   when multiple implementations are going to main net and and there is   a transaction between c lightning and lnd.   So that's kind of the start of of of the main net   network.   And have you know that   the test net was very active before then and obviously before, like, even Segwit activated. And the recipe board was then there to kind of   try it out and buy a blocaccino, as you say in the guide. I think it's right here.  

So Fantastic. So that's been, yeah, that's been something   I've been looking at during that period. And then, you know, pretty much   this summer after or, like, you know, like, after March,   I did build the did build the recipe both myself.   And, looking at my GitHub, I I fold fold   the guide and the, like, the extras repo in, like, in beginning of August 2018. So splitting up it's been there and already the community was building then.   Mhmm. So it's, it's been great. All the reckless hashtag I can remember. And, also, I was,   you know, losing some channels without any kind of backup then, and, you know, it's just because of a power glitch and stuff like that.  

So it was definitely reckless indeed.  

[00:17:04] Unknown:

Definitely. And I remember that beginning of 2018,   it was pretty easy to already   switch   to main net if you wanted to, but you had to do some code changes and compile it yourself.   And the developers really backed the community not to do that.   And I also respected that and did not   provide instructions on how   to go on main net before,   like,   the developers gave their their go ahead, and they felt comfortable   with, like, being only reckless, not reckless reckless.  

[00:17:38] Unknown:

Do you   well, I guess, first off, for the the freaks because I already put it up on the screen for those watching the video. But for the freaks listening into the podcast feeds,   you can it's raspibolt.org.   Very easy to remember domain.   All the materials are neatly laid out on that website,   so go check that out after the show.   Yeah. I mean, the whole the whole reckless   meme   when lightning went mainnet,   seemed very   counter to Bitcoin in a lot of ways. I mean, I I think Bitcoin is always very conservative,   kind of,   basically the opposite of reckless in terms of the way   people treat using Bitcoin or at least the way the more   enthusiast community or hardcore community treats using Bitcoin.  

Do you guy you guys still think that lightning is reckless?   Like, do you think that   is still the case? Are we still, like, almost in a beta mode of lightning?  

[00:18:49] Unknown:

Personally, I don't really think so. I mean,   of course, if you don't really know what you're doing and setting up a note without the basic understanding what you're doing and putting, like, 1,000 of dollars in that, I guess that's still reckless.   But   if you have some, like,   good knowledge on   how to run a server   and how to,   like,   run software in a secure and hardened way, I think, Lightning is pretty stable.  

[00:19:22] Unknown:

I mean, I know   I don't think I passed the point yet where I mean, when I first started using Lightning, I kinda just,   you know, started fucking around with it and playing around with it. And I kinda just operated under the assumption I was gonna lose my money.   And I don't know if I still I I don't know if I've left that   assumption yet. I think I still   operate under the assumption that basically any funds I have on my Lightning Nodes,   can be lost at will.  

[00:19:52] Unknown:

Yeah. I guess that's that's a good starting point. I think you can build from that.  

[00:19:57] Unknown:

I mean, because what we had the   I was presenting at the HRF Oslo Freedom Forum earlier this year   or earlier last year.   And when I got off stage,   I think Stefan Lovera   came up to me and and said to me, he's like, Matt, did you see that lightning vulnerability?   And, like, when you read   the vulnerability disclosure, it almost made it seem like people could just drain funds at will if you had, like, a malicious peer.   And it didn't happen.   Like, one of my nodes has, you know, 200 channels or something. Like, I don't know all the peers,   and it didn't happen. But I remember the first thing I was like, oh, well, I either lost my money or I didn't.  



[00:20:46] Unknown:

Yeah. I guess that's a scary thing if you have, like, really lots of funds on there.   But, I mean, in the end, it's a hot wallet. Right? So Yeah. That could also happen with if you have a Bitcoin on chain hot wallet somewhere,   if there's any vulnerability   anywhere on the system, your funds are always   somehow at risk.   So I think that's one of the main drawbacks of lightning.   But it's okay. It's a different use case. And it's just important to know that   having   a lot of money in a hot wallet connected to the Internet   is probably not for your life savings.  



[00:21:25] Unknown:

I mean, it's definitely not. Right? You have your savings and your cold storage, and then,   this is almost either spending cash or operating flow if you're running a routing node.   Exactly.   So, I mean, I personally   if if the freaks go back, I mean,   dispatch is is has almost been every week.   Took a couple breaks,   last year.   As I mean, if you do basic math, I mean, it's still dispatched 50 and started at the very end of last year.   And a rabbit hole recap is every week.   So the freaks are and I admit this every day. I mean, the freaks are very aware that I completely   you know,   I was completely wrong about a sustained high fee market. I thought we'd   see a sustained high fee market, sooner rather than later.  

I still think I expect it going forward, but, I mean, as you can see, I have a live look of,   mempool dot space   on the screen right now, and 1 separate byte is confirming next block.   Does what how how do you how do you view the fee market? How do you view do you think fees will go up? How do you when you talk to people about,   the advantages of lightning,   do you square that with the fact that you can just do one sapro byte and get in the next block?  

[00:22:50] Unknown:

So   I guess there are different use cases to Bitcoin. Like, Bitcoin is something else for everybody who joins   the network.   And I think lightning bought us a lot of time in term in terms of,   like,   mempool and block space   just because   people that now use Lightning, they   basically don't take up any,   block space.   So I think that suppresses the the fees a lot.   But there are other use cases like sending   funds   to to an exchange to if you want to sell or withdraw them into your cold storage. And I think that's probably more the case if you're, like, in a really FOMO driven   hype cycle. So I would still   expect   fees to rise during, like, peak. Like, 2017   was insane. I think I paid up to $30   once,   but only once.  

But I think that can happen again,   but we're we're buying time   with lightning, definitely.  

[00:23:59] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I tend to one of the ways I tend to frame it is is almost like a release valve   in times of high fee pressure, and it kind of could   provide the network with the ability to,   not stay at a high fee level for as long as it would otherwise. But one of the key aspects here is, I mean, every Lightning channel is an open and   requires an open and close,   which is an on which is 2 on chain transactions.   So if you're not prepared for that ahead of time,   you're you're not going to get the fee savings   of Lightning in a high fee environment. If we have a high fee environment in a week or 2 weeks, not that I'm saying that we will, we probably will not,   That's not the time to really open the channels. The time to open in the channels is when it's 1 separate byte. Mhmm.  

OpenOps, do you have any thoughts here?  

[00:24:53] Unknown:

Well, I think it's it's a good approach to think of using lightning as a saving approach because it's definitely not a a way to make money.   If you have   something   some use for it, then,   you know, open channels. But I   I I don't really believe in this kind of preemptively   working towards the   or or preparing for the high fee market. Because to be honest, even then,   if you want to send a lightning transaction, you would just   just a Bitcoin transaction. You would just think twice that,   should I open a channel rather?   Does this beer have a node? Does this exchange by then have a node? Does this, you know, friend of mine or this shop have a node? And if I would stay on chain,   I would just rather open a channel then. And then,   you know, you have the fee savings for the next payment because the next one you will be able to to spend on lightning either to that shop or peer   or through the lightning network to anywhere else.  



[00:25:59] Unknown:

Right. Because, like, at its core, Lightning is essentially,   batch Bitcoin transactions. So instead of sending one transaction,   Exactly.   Yeah. So you still get fee savings in that situation.  

[00:26:14] Unknown:

Okay. Cool. I think   the bite lightning already,   helps us scale Bitcoin a lot, But, of course, it's it's it's not done scaling. Right?   So once we're like,   dual funded channels will become the norm or channel factories where you can open, like, one big channel with multiple peers.   Something like that, I think, would probably be the next step   of lightning scaling.   And I'm not sure what comes after that, but I guess we'll I think Andreas Antonopoulos once said we're constantly   not   failing to scale or something like that. So it's always, like, pushing the boundaries,   like, a few weeks or a few years in front of us.  



[00:27:02] Unknown:

Oh, yeah. I mean, a 100%. I mean, I I like to remind the freaks that, you know, most of the things that will   be developed,   in Bitcoin land, I don't even think we can really fathom them yet.   I don't think we should rest on that and just assume that will be the case, but at the same time,   we should be humble enough to realize that,   our small human brains can't really understand the implications so far ahead of time.   I know I've been caught off guard way, way, way many times.   So open arms, where do you think we should go next in this conversation?  

[00:27:45] Unknown:

So we went through the history, and we heard about the rest of the world's history. I mean, because   get get into the details of it a bit. I mean, should we just,   skim through   what we do when we are setting   up a lightning node.  

[00:28:01] Unknown:

Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.   I mean, maybe taking a step back and,   giving a quick overview what the rest of the bolt is or is not   versus   other node implementations   could help and then dive into what how it actually works.  

[00:28:21] Unknown:

Yeah. Let's do that. So so what what is,   you know, I've had the Raspberry Pi Blitz team on. I've had Roni Dojo team on. I've had   pretty much everyone but Umbralon.   How is how is Raspberry Bolt different than, let's say, Raspberry Blitz?  

[00:28:39] Unknown:

Cool. Yeah. So let me,   preface that with that I fear for every node that joins the network. I think   this is our all shared   goal.   The more people around their own node and actually use it, the better.   With   in in light of the the differences.   So I think the recipe vault   is the only   project. So to say that it's just a guide.   So there's nothing to download.   It's a website,   and it's it's getting pretty big.   And   it basically takes you by the hand   and lays out command by command   how you can   set up your own   do everything yourself   Bitcoin   full node with lightning, with with many bonus guides and stuff like that.  

But in the end, it's it's not only about having the node in the end. It's also about   knowing   how it's built, how how you set it up yourself,   and   not trusting someone else to just, like, download an image and and run it. So it's it's it's as much a learning experience   as running a node.   And I guess it's not for everybody, and it doesn't need to be because I I'm always amazed how   many   projects   there are out there. And it seems like every project has found its niche.   So the recipe vault is really, like, more about learning.   And it's it's pretty universal, so it only uses step in commands. So you can not only use it on a Raspberry Pi, you can reuse it on a virtual private server, on a virtual machine. Everything that can run Debian   is able to   run the Respibault.  

And then, of course, like the Respibilts,   Rud Sol and his team, like,   as   mentioned,   they basically built on top of the recipe vault,   but,   with the focus on lightning hack days, which full mode does quite quite often.   And they basically automated the whole thing, which is awesome. In the beginning, it was just like the recipe vault automated with shell scripts,   but that was just the beginning. And now they build, like, awesome stuff on top of that. They they you their own menu system,   many, many options you can,   switch on. But it's still, like, more of a   a hack day.  

I think the target audience are are are more, like, people that want to to go down to the command line, understand how it's working, like more tinkerers.   So that's that's like an awesome project. I really,   I also run it myself.   And then, of course, are, like, the more, like, UI focused notes, like Umbrel, my notes, like the Citadel.   These are really, really cool because it allow they allow, like, normies.   Like, I wasn't once as well before I fell down the rabbit hole   So just, like, download an image, put it into the Raspberry Pi, spin it up, and connect your browser, and that's basically it. You're on you're now a sovereign   peer on the Bitcoin blockchain.  

And I find this especially important   if you then connect your hardware wallet to it   Because   many projects put it more the focus more on lightning.   But I'm really   for me, that's more like the cherry on top. I care much more about the underlying blockchain and validating   my own transactions   on chain with my hardware wallet directly on my own full node.   So that might be another difference. The the Raspberry Bolt really builds the the on chain part first   and lightning comes on top while other projects   basically advertise them as Lightning nodes.   And many didn't even allow you to connect your   harder wallets to them, like through a Electrum server or something like that.  

And, yeah, one one last thing like Nix Bitcoin.   I was trying to get more into it. It's it has a steep learning curve, but I really appreciate what the these guys are doing.   Can't really do them justice explaining it. It's just like a super hard and   no compromise   security focused,   reproducibly   built   Bitcoin full note   distribution   built on Nix OS.   So   that's really, really cool to see. And I think if I find the time someday, this   is probably what I'm gonna experiment with next.  

[00:33:40] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I had   some of the guys from Nix Bitcoin on,   cildispatch   42. So that's cildispatch.com/cd42.   If any of the freaks have missed that episode and are interested in going back and listening.   Open Arms, do you have anything to add on there?   By the way, as always, feel free to just jump in. Don't don't feel like I need to be, you know, host host Odell over here. You're you're welcome to jump in at any point.  

[00:34:13] Unknown:

Right. Thanks. Well,   no. I I I do like the the approach of of of Skye of basing basing everything on on self validating and just going step by step. I've been when I've,   you know, come into,   basically, come into running a full node   through   running a lightning node. So I I've, first of all   well,   wanted to use, like, Electrum and, you know, like, between core as well as   running a lightning node and it I understand that how important that is to get, like, a solid foundation. And then the   I needed to understand how how it is all built up, and this was the guide which I just, you know, kept coming back to. I mean, now there are for example, for Lightning, there is like, the Lightning   Labs   have kind of a node builder's guide or,   similar quite extensive documentation, but how to use l and d itself or how to set it up in in various   environments.  

But   that is   basically aimed for, like, an the industrial use. But if you want to sit down yourself,   you would you would start hacking away with with, you know now I have now I need to get into using Linux as an operating system and as I and I was coming from Windows so far. So how do I do this? And then,   you know, there are basic commands   you can use. And   from 0, and I I do this. I tell this from experience. One of my first exposures to using Linux was going through the s p boat guide, and it was just, you know, it was   it was a great drilling point, and I kept coming back to it. Oh, how do I do do this and that? And, you know, there's been just a couple of sentences of explanation just to do it. So,   you know, thanks for that, and and and that is great. And it still remained   this, you know, focus on this approach, which is,   yeah, exactly. It's quite quite unique.  

So there are different people coming into into   interacting with Bitcoin. Like, if someone is interested, you know, in it for the technology,   then, you know, they would they would come to learn,   and then this would be the route I would send them send   them down on.   If someone is, you know, like, a big investor,   coming in with, you know, 1,000,000 of dollars like the gentleman you've seen in the big in the clip in the beginning,   then, you know, I would definitely not   ask them to kind of, okay, let's start typing these comments,   but they would need to be   have a service provided.  



[00:36:51] Unknown:

But, you know, in a in a way You don't think you don't think Bill Miller should, follow the Raspberry Bolt guide?  

[00:36:58] Unknown:

Well, I think he should, but he won't.   I don't think,   you know, it it I don't think that would be a suggestion he would want to hear, So it would be not the right thing to say it. Do you think there's an argument for  

[00:37:13] Unknown:

maybe,   people that started with,   RaspiBlitz   or Ronin Dojo or an Umbral or or something similar to that,   and maybe they're still using it as their main node to also on the side go through RAS by Bolt's guide and   maybe set it up that way so they can understand more about how everything is working under the hood because all of these node implementations are   they have a lot of similarities. Right?  

[00:37:41] Unknown:

Well, in terms of having the base operating system, it's,   like like, DB and Linux distro based in most, except Ronin Dojo is using Manjaro, which is like Arch.   It's it's it's slightly different. You have slightly different commands   with the same kind of logic.   So I would   definitely recommend everyone to kind of go into it, course through it. And maybe if someone would decide to build,   like, a more   resilient, a bit more serious   node to provide some service maybe or, you know,   serve   the needs of, you know, Billy Uncle Jim,   to serve, for example, a Manpoo list instance or, like, an Electrum server to some   others, and the Raspberry Pi will be a bit underpowered for that, and then they will now start on a   on just a computer in the corner,   then   exactly this would be the time just to   not to take something off the shelf, but just build it themselves. And then this would be the right guy to look into, and you might need some modifications in in a couple of cases. But, I mean, it's it's pretty much   same on any computer running Linux. Right?  



[00:38:59] Unknown:

So this was one of the the main goals.   Is now in version 3,   with a   nice   neon glow layout. That was just it's just like 1 or 2 months old, the current guide. And one of the major changes was to get rid of all Raspberry Pi specific commands.   So it's it's much easier to set up the Wi Fi using a respi config or something like that.   But   I really wanted to have it as universal as possible. So if openums mentions that, okay, now,   the Raspberry Pi is no longer   has no longer the oomph you need.   It should be possible to have exactly the same,   setup,   for example, on a on a cloud server or, like, on a on a virtual private server or on a   NUC, like, Intel NUC based,   hardware you host yourself.  

The only changes would probably be that you don't need to download the ARM 64, the binaries, but the Intel   ones. But that's like a a very easy   change to do. Everything else should be exactly the same because it uses only plain Debian commands.  

[00:40:17] Unknown:

I mean, the Raspi the Raspis   are very underpowered,   but they're also really cheap and efficient and   easy to work with.   I mean, the Raspi when Raspi Bolt first when you first released   v one of Raspi Bolt, I mean, that must have been on Raspberry Pi Threes   Yes. Which were really underpowered. And now most people use Raspberry Fours. Right?  

[00:40:41] Unknown:

Exactly. So I would even say that like a Raspberry Pi 4 with 8 gigabytes of RAM,   it   it's   almost overkill for this kind of setup unless you have, like, hundreds of channels.   But, of course, that's like regular   scaling in IT terms.   But I think my   pies are mostly idle. They have   way too much oomph for that stuff they do.   But for example, on the Raspberry Pi 3, it was not a it it was not possible to verify the blockchain   directly on the device. So the older versions of the guide   made you download the   blockchain to your regular computer,   like run through the whole indexing stuff and then copied over   to the to the pie.  

This now is no longer necessary. You can just   wait 2 days and everything is indexed.   I think that's that's pretty cool. And, I mean, if you what what you get for $60 or so is is really amazing.  

[00:41:45] Unknown:

I mean, we just recently had,   Craig Rall, lead maintainer of Spiro Wallet. I mean, he released,   like, a performance analysis breakdown of ElectrumX and Electris   Electrum Rust Server   using RAASPI Fours.   And I guess   most of these projects are using Electrum Rust Server. It's not practical to,   run Electrum x on them.   And he he's I mean, his analysis   seemed to   make clear and, I mean, I've noticed it myself   that, you know, it's not an ideal situation really. Like, if you're using   an Electrum server running on a raspi and you have a wallet that is very deep, that has a lot of,   UTXO history, a lot of transaction history,   they tend to really struggle still.  



[00:42:40] Unknown:

Yeah. That's true. So, I mean That's also an inherent limitation of Electris   itself.   ElectrumX   is   harder to set up,   but it for, like   I I work at ShiftCrypto. Right? So we do run our own Electrum servers for our clients with the hardware wallets.   And   we use Electrum   X for that   because it   Elektrus is not built   to   serve, like, 1,000   and 1,000   of clients at the same time.  

[00:43:16] Unknown:

But you're running those on professional servers? Yeah. Of course. Not the right side of the That's true. Yeah.  

[00:43:22] Unknown:

Yeah.   I mean, I   I wouldn't agree on that, like, the pie   is too much. It is   absolutely the bare minimum. The the the   r p 3 was   not suitable to do this. And whoever comes to me asking that, oh, can I do this on a Raspberry Pi 3?   Well, I mean, they can, you know, it is a wrong question   because no one should.   And then   Raspberry Pi 4   does have   I mean, the processor power is not that different.   The RAM, obviously, you know, versus 1 gigabyte, 4 gigabytes, or 8 is is is great. But then just this this simple   power,   the emperors, it can give to the disk.   It's just even that is just hardly enough for to power 1 disk. And the biggest   problem with, you know, the resiliency of this of these setups is that single disk is prone to fail because there is no battery.  

They should be connected to UPS.   And  

[00:44:28] Unknown:

A battery backup?  

[00:44:30] Unknown:

Yeah. Battery backup. And then you you wouldn't   you cannot even think of, like, running RAID or, you know, duplicating,   your your your data. Like, you know, data security basically is terrible, which is a very bad choice, very bad pair with lightning.  

[00:44:46] Unknown:

Right. Because with lightning,   I mean, with lightning, you want if if   if,   your your your your state is constantly changing and you need to constantly update your state,   You don't wanna have an old state, otherwise,   you get penalized   and you can lose funds that way. And the main way of backing up,   short of actually doing,   constant, like, almost a RAID configuration where you're having constantly   backing it up to a second drive is this idea of,   static static channel backups where you actually lose all your channels in that situation. Everything gets settled on chain. So it's, like, not an ideal backup situation. You'd prefer if you just didn't have the drive failure in the first place. So yes. Exactly. So the subject to channel backup is just a list of your peers where the node,  

[00:45:39] Unknown:

in a failover situation, can connect to and ping them   to force close the channels themselves. If they are offline, funds are stuck.   You know, that is that is not not much use.   The actual   channel database, the database of the of the states of the lightning channels is is most valuable information,   which indeed you need to back up in real time, which you can you can do. Like, especially with c lightning, it has a plug in which has which can do real time backups   even to an off-site location.   But then what you get, you need to run another server. Right?   Right. I mean, you would need to do this anyway for backups, but, I mean, you would need to have your   main   machine,   working quite quite as reliably as well. So I think that that is the biggest kind of   bottleneck or or a drawback or weakness of of of the Raspberry Pi that it cannot it's not able to   power, like, 2 disks just by itself. And then you can use external power. You have an extra cable,   you know, and then another thing that with which the cats or, you know, like a young child can play with.  

You know, again, not not ideal.  

[00:46:51] Unknown:

And this is specifically for Lightning. If, I mean, if it's on chain funds,   then   I I always channel my inner Zoolander. Like, with Lightning,   the keys are in the computer.   With with   on chain, the keys are ideally being are not being held on the actual node itself. So if the node fails, it's just it's just a way of interacting with the network. It's not actually holding your secrets.  

[00:47:16] Unknown:

Yeah. Exactly.   I think we're we're probably having a a bit of different use cases in mind.   For me, it's really the Raspberry Pi is the perfect device to have your own   at home Bitcoin full node for on chain use,   query the network. Yeah. Like a direct participant of the peer to peer network   and run a lightning,   node on top for your personal use.   But I'd never use it for, like, a business or if you have I mean, I probably have, like, 20 channels or so, and for that, it's perfectly fine.   But, of course, if you're looking into   this redundancy   or,   like, hold, like, large funds   or even need, like, guaranteed 247   uptime for a business because otherwise you can't take any,   payments,   then   a Raspberry Pi is probably not the,   the right choice.  

Then I'd definitely go with something that actually has a case   and a decent power supply and   allows you to have,   like, all the stuff neatly   connected directly and not everything   dangling off USB hubs and stuff like that.  

[00:48:29] Unknown:

Yeah. Agree. But, yes, I've, you know, kind of just stropening this this argument that, you know, I I'm I'm   building recipe blitzes and, you know, I   do develop this software and, you know, I do   think that it is a great way to start.   But then, indeed, you would need to scale up if you are, you know, doing something serious with your node. Like, for example, 20 channels is just about   which, you know, I would say,   acceptable.   But if you go up, for example, to 50 so just   just take a quick calculation of what does it cost to force close 50 channels if you are lucky. Yeah. And, oh, and, oh, so your the disc fails. It does fail, you know, one   in every 3 years, I would say, you know, it's   quite likely. And then   even with the SSDs, I mean, the hard disks are even even even worse, but don't even go there.  

And then you would need to restore, for example, the static channel backup, which you have been, you know, cleverly set up to to have saved somewhere   automatically or or,   there is a guide for that investment board.   So 50 times,   what,   $5 transaction?   Force closes are are are bigger, and   they for security, they are using a high fee,   so they should confirm in the next block.   So let's say,   $10 each.   That's   that's $500.   You can get quite decent competitor for that.   And you might have, you know, invested it before you had the 50 channels or you have the 50 channels now, you might invested it invested into hardware,   migrate   the nodes over, which is perfectly   possible.  

And then you have a good computer and less risk of needing to close all your channels, for example.   So, yeah, just just be aware of of of the limitations   of it. And, yeah, don't don't be very   to start, but then recognize when you need to need to step up.   Hashtag reckless.  

[00:50:44] Unknown:

Yeah. No disagreement there.  

[00:50:46] Unknown:

So   I mean, that's an interesting framing that in a lot of ways, you're kind of when you start with the raspi, you're you're basically   deferring a potential cost rather than doing the cost upfront.   We have,   the j plus one in the comments. I feel like this is a good jumping point based on   your previous comment   asking about if you guys have any experience   about migrating off a pie to new hardware,   and, like, what that process entails.   Any tips or tricks there?  

[00:51:20] Unknown:

I guess for the lightning part, Openhouse is   much more   experienced,   than I am.   But I would say set if you migrate to new hardware, you can just set it up,   at in terms of the rest pie, bolt.   Just set it up   new. You can copy over the blockchain.   If I'm not mistaken,   probably   set up lightning   part, run it once, and close it down again. And I think after that, you can pretty much copy the the old,   directories over. Right? You just need to make sure that never ever the old note goes online again.  

[00:52:00] Unknown:

Yep.   No. That's, that's   basically   just it. It it's not that difficult. I mean, and people need to understand then why the old node doesn't it must not go online ever again because it has   a previous state of this the channels.   And once that database have been running in another instance,   those dates   states obviously get updated with with the peers   as well as on that instance. And then if you boot up the old one again I mean, you could boot up, but if you would run l and d or c lightning on the on the old one again, then you would try to   build on the   the previous states, which then your peers would penalize   and losing all your channel   funds. All the channel funds would go on to the,   to the other side, which is which is a penalty mechanism of of of the current   Lightning protocol. So it's important to prevent,   but you can easily do that when you are moving   between hardwares.  

You take   so what what do you have for for lightning? You have   a wallet file,   which is like a wallet dotdb   for lnd. It's like an HSM secret   for c lightning.   It it contains the keys with from which the Bitcoin keys   are derived from.   And then you have another file which is called the channel DB   or the lightning   SQLite,   which is a database of your lightning   net   lightning channel states,   which   is containing the keys for the off chain funds,   which is the ones in the lightning channel. So, basically, these two files   just needs to be moved to the new instance. And as as Stelica said, it's a great practice to make sure that the new setup works by just, you know,   running a new node on it and make sure that there are no, you know, bugs or, like, things which are would   stop you from   stop it from working. And then   you can just take these old files and put it in place of the of the   new ones.  

So your old ones would move in place to this   new   setup.   And   while you're moving, you would need   to rename those directories   or I mean, don't delete them key backups, but   just move them and make sure it won't be a functional   software again when   the computer starts   with the same day score,   with the old disk again.   So   and, also, I mean, I've done   in terms of moving to a completely new type of machine,   Like,   there's been   a problem recently   when we discovered   that when the LND database, general database,   does grow above 1 gigabytes,   which is if you are, like, running rebalance scripts or,   you know, having a lot of payments   and or making a lot of payments that can happen fairly quickly   within couple of months really with, like, you know, 20, 30 channels.  

And,   it stops working on the 32 bit   Raspberry Pi   OS, which is which is a good thing that the   Raspberry Pi itself, Raspberry Pi 3 and 4 themselves is 64 bit compatible.   But the default operating system which the Raspberry Pi Foundation does distribute to be compatible with zeros and everything else is 32 bit   and that is not supported by LND, for example. So we need to   move a lot of nodes. I mean, I did a couple myself   from this 32 bit architecture to 64 bit 1, which was which is was   clearly not recommended in the in the documentation   of l and d, for example.  

But then it worked without without problems.   Yeah. Hashtag reckless. You know, the first one I was sweating, but,   second one was not that bad.   And then I moved further   to   when these databases now, you know, grow to be, like, you know, 6, 7, 8 gigabytes   and,   you know, the number of the channels are growing,   I moved them   to proper x8664   bit architecture, which is like an old server,   which you can you can get for, like, you know, 2 £200   ish.   You know, something which,   has, like,   5, 6 years old,   industrial setup.   So it is not not a big investment, but then you can start stacking disks in it and, like, and fall down all sorts of rabbit holes about data security and integrity and etcetera.   And then even between operating systems, you know, these files, the, like, developed database and the channel database, these these can be moved. So it's it's doable. Just need to be careful where where you put things and don't destroy data and then just concentrate on not   running   old instances as well.  



[00:57:22] Unknown:

But with all that said, I mean, you're of the belief that   people just shouldn't even have them most people shouldn't even have that many channels open.   They should just,   you know, keep it to the bare minimum   and and maybe even why even migrate in that situation? Why not just   close channels   and close those few channels you have and open new ones on the   on the new node?  

[00:57:47] Unknown:

Well, I mean, you you want to want to save on churn fees. I mean, it depends. Now it's easy when it's 1 set per byte, confirms next block, but,   or no? It's is it 8 8 sets per byte? But, still Oh, big spending.  

[00:58:01] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. Because if you don't care about your notes, that's as a routing note, for example,   then   closing channels and opening. If you have, like, 5 or 10 channels,   It's probably also  

[00:58:14] Unknown:

a a good way to do it. But, I mean, Open Arms came out swinging and was like, you're not gonna make any money anyway.  

[00:58:21] Unknown:

So at least don't throw, like, 6¢ out of the window.  

[00:58:26] Unknown:

Yeah.   Well, you can you won't make money, but you can save and you can do things   you can do things which you You can look for them. Platform.   Yeah. Exactly.   Cool. I mean, it's like, yeah, it's like, why why would you buy a car a car which would consume less? Right?  

[00:58:46] Unknown:

Awesome.   I mean, we had another comment in the chat about someone saying they like to use a   brand new Mac mini with the their m one chip and a 2 terabyte SSD in it,   for their node. Do you have any feedback for that person?  

[00:59:05] Unknown:

Awesome. Go for it.  

[00:59:09] Unknown:

Cool.  

[00:59:11] Unknown:

Do you know open arms? Is, like, is it arm 64  

[00:59:14] Unknown:

with the m one? Yes. Yes. I think so. I didn't work. Yeah. I I I didn't   try the machine itself, but   I've heard tests that it was, like,   validating the whole chain in, like, 4 hours or so Oh, wow. When it came out. And, you know, it's certainly powerful enough to be,   able to deal with the situation.   But, you know, run Linux on it. I mean, I don't know. Does it commit like a fixed operating system?   Don't use closed source operating systems?  

[00:59:48] Unknown:

Can can you run Linux on m 1?  

[00:59:51] Unknown:

I'm sure you can. Yeah.  

[00:59:53] Unknown:

They're not doing some kind of   Secure Elements   bullshit in there or something?  

[01:00:00] Unknown:

I have no idea.  

[01:00:02] Unknown:

Well, like, you need, like, the signing key? I don't know.   I've never tried it. Then jailbreak it. You know? Yes. Yeah. Jailbreak it. Exactly.   Jailbreak your $2,000   computer or whatever it is. A $1,000 computer.   But, yeah, I mean,   if if your node is holding, if you care about your privacy, if your node's holding a decent amount of funds,   running the closed source OSX platform,   that Mac should get shipped with by default is a   dangerous game.   So where do we wanna go from here?  

[01:00:42] Unknown:

So   open up suggested before to   do a quick run through the guide,   and I wanted to take a step back. But I guess we we took a step back and took a little walk   from there,   Maybe   going   through the quickly through the individual parts of the guide and give some comments here and there could be something.  

[01:01:06] Unknown:

Let's do  

[01:01:09] Unknown:

it. Cool.   So,   of course, like, if you if you go to raspi bolt.org,   it gives you some, like, okay, what is it?   How is structured?   There's, like, I think, a pretty important part about the community   where you can like, if you run into problems, you can open an an issue on GitHub.   There's a knowledge base.   There's a Reddit sub.   You can join the Telegram group.   So there's lots of people that   want to help you if you're stuck somewhere.   And from there, it's basically separated in 3 parts, like the the Raspberry Pi itself, including the operating system,   then the Bitcoin on chain part, and then lightning.  

And   after that, this is, like, the core guide.   We aim to have, like, a high   maintenance guarantee on the core guide. So it should be should mostly be up to date.   If there's, like, something that   no longer works, we're we're very happy to fix it quickly.   But then there's also the bonus section, and this is more meant to be a collection of additional,   optional guides,   also from external contributors.   And I think it's it can be pretty interesting to just have a collection of   fun stuff to do.   But, of course,   stuff like that can become outdated, and it's not really possible to keep everything up to date in that bonus guide section.   But this is really what I imagine a bit have, like, a a really well maintained core section   and a a good,   collection of   individual guides or fun stuff to do on top of that,   installing other applications and all that   fun stuff.  

So,   I mean, basically, the first thing you do is get a Raspberry   Pi.   The one thing that is really important, get the official power adapter.   I've had I've I've wasted so much of my own time   with using, like,   regular USB adapters. And   if you want to have a stable Raspberry Pi, just use the official one. This is the the one learning I took after   hours of wasted,   kernel panics   and shutdowns.   After that, you just install the   the operating system. And as OpenNoms mentioned, it's really important to get the 64 bit,   Raspberry Pi OS,   which officially is still in beta,   but it works really well.  

It's been running, I think, for months now on my note without a single restart.   I don't really think,   there's   much   instability in it.   So that's that's pretty cool. It's based on Debian, so   it's really a standard   Debian based,   Linux   system.   The cool thing is,   the Raspberry Pi   also provides   an application   to actually flash,   the operating system.   And what's really cool is that you can flash it directly on a SSD.   So you don't really need to use a micro s s a micro SD card   because in my experience, this is the weakest   part of the node.  

Micro SD cards just   are not meant for constant write read and write operations.   So   after a year a year or or a bit more, maybe a bit less, they tend to wear out, at least mine did.   So   you can   write the   operating system directly on the SSD   and boot for directly from the SSD. You don't even need a micro SD card. I think that's that's pretty cool and improves the overall stability of the node a lot.  

[01:05:19] Unknown:

It's an it's an interesting,   change you have done with the it came in the v three, isn't it? Yeah. Exactly. Because it it it wasn't like that. And,   I have mixed feeling about mixed feelings about this because   it's easy to change a micro SD card, but then   I mean, even with my regular computer, you know, it's like, running   without partitions on your disk. Right?   That you have, like, just all eggs in 1 basket kind of   kind of thing. So,   I like having a a micro SD in in a setup like this because then you have just   a a separate physical device to   to replicate some of the things. For example, this this status channel backup   on.  

So if one fails, you don't have everything failed.  

[01:06:07] Unknown:

Yeah. And that's the important part. So what we,   plan to do, like, in the next weeks, I guess, it's top list.   Actually,   as part of the core guides,   just plug in them, like a USB thumb drive   and directly store the static channel backup on that one. So we do have then redundancy again.   And we also include   a a little   guide,   how to upload and sync the static channel,   backup file to your own private GitHub repository   as like as a like a   let's say, a cloud drive or something like that.  

[01:06:49] Unknown:

Yes. It's an encrypted file, so you can basically put it anywhere you like.   Exactly.   Yeah. So and then, I mean, micro SDs indeed fail. They do access these 2, unfortunately.   But then   you you really so as just   as,   you mentioned with the power supply, it really depends on the quality you buy   and   if it is what is written on the box.   Because we say, like, you know, buy buy a power supply which provides 3 amperes or more.   Well, not all of them are capable of doing that what is written on it. So,   indeed, I do for sure one is a good choice, but there are a couple like,   shop   does sell one which is called universal,   power supply, which is good quality as well and been been proving itself. And then regarding the SD cards,   we really found that, like, the endurance models from, like, some disk or   something   do the job much better in terms of, they have been designed to be Mhmm. Installed in, like,   you know, dashboard cameras and stuff like that, which are,   like, written constantly,   and they supposed to   last for a good couple of 1,000 hours.  

So if you would happen to use   a micro SD, then   then   then use a good one.   I I can I wouldn't recommend that?   But then with the SSD, you would you should probably have some speed up as well. So the operating system would run faster if you are booting if you are booting from that. So it's a it's it's a really good, yeah, technical solution for sure.  

[01:08:34] Unknown:

Cool. Yeah. And it it sometimes I mean, even if there should be a problem with the operating system, you still can   flash it on a micro SD card and still boot from that. So   it's not like you're locked out   because just because everything's on the same   drive. But, yeah, I fully agree redundancy, especially with the backups, is super important.  

[01:09:01] Unknown:

Very good points.   Then Don't use the cheap SD card for sure.  

[01:09:08] Unknown:

No. Definitely not. No. You are already building something very affordable.   So, yeah, choose choose the parts wisely.   That's all I can say because loads of like, half of the issues are hardware based with these kind of things. Mhmm. Yeah.  

[01:09:24] Unknown:

And and, you you know, I I do have, like, quite a bit of experience with other,   single board computers as well. For example, the Rok Pro   64.   Yes.   And in my experience, I didn't find a board that comes close to the, like, uptime and reliability of a Raspberry Pi.   So even   even with a rock pro 64,   if you run them, like, 247,   there's   from time to time, it can be, like, 3 months, but it can also be just 2 weeks. There's a kernel panic, and it just freezes.   That really, really sucks   if you're not at home to reboot your node and you want to make some payments.  

[01:10:04] Unknown:

So that's very interesting. I mean, sorry. A little derailing your,   kind of walk through of the guide. Mhmm. But my favorite part, actually, which is which is in the in the FAQ, I think, and on just getting get there on the end.   It's not in the FAQ. It's in the bonus section, I guess, where you can   use different computers like   like the. Yeah. Yeah. There is hardware   setup,   which is   the famous top thumb droid was, you know, the basis of many many things. Like, most famously, I think it has been running   the set of his place   initially,   before he he scaled up, obviously. It picked up a bit.  

And I did use these as well because   I've, just, you know, came to the rest of the day. Place was running on an originally?  

[01:10:57] Unknown:

Yeah. I didn't know that.   In Bitcoin Quala's   closet, I think. So Yeah. Exactly.  

[01:11:04] Unknown:

That's the I I think that is there is even, like, a picture of it, on theater somewhere. A lightning collar.   Yes.   So so yes. So so so just   obviously everything starts with getting the hardware.   It is interesting to find   to to hear your experience about the rock pro because in this old radio guide, you still, recommending these,   x u 4 and hcone   ones Mhmm.   Which are especially the hcone   has, like, a built in adapter.   So you can put the disk right attached   to the board, very stable, has a huge heat sink around it, which is the case as well.   But the problem is it has,   like, a 7th generation processor, which is only 30 32 bit, but it's not possible to run 64 bit on it. So I would consider that a little I mean, I I would consider that outdated.  

But then there is the pro 64, which is popular with other projects like running Dojo, for example. They are I think they just released the new kind of preview at nodes, which is built based on it.   And and and you yourself had a lot of experience,   working with ShiftCrypto   with the bit BitBox   projects.   Space. Yeah. Bitbox space that was,   which was an it's it's an amazing and still up. Right? It's just, it's maintained?  

[01:12:29] Unknown:

Not really. No. No. I think if we ever pick it up, then we need to do redo a lot of stuff. Yeah. It's been iced.   Yeah. Exactly.  

[01:12:38] Unknown:

But that's Yes. I I was under the impression that it's good to yep. Yeah. I I wouldn't blame the the hardware,  

[01:12:44] Unknown:

specifically, but   I think we we built on the,   distribution.   And it might just as well be that there are, like, some   some NUCs in in in the distributions  

[01:12:58] Unknown:

that are not like the official ones. And with many boards, there aren't any official distributions. Right? Yeah. I mean, it's a rock chip as well. It is a it is a chip which is not   that widely used.  

[01:13:10] Unknown:

Mhmm.  

[01:13:12] Unknown:

So the   kernel   written   for it is basically not that well tested.   And that's been a problem with the previous,   kind of rock 64   board as well, which just, you know, many of them has been have been like, they were physically   they were, like, dead on arrival or or they were, like,   doing calculation errors, which is obviously not acceptable for for a Bitcoin node. Right? And the rock support 64   got much better and it also has like a PCI Express port where you can   apply   an NVMe   SSD. Exactly. So the ones which are usually found in laptops or, like,   systems   built for speed.  

And that that that is very good.   The hackle   projects or HAC0, they call it, by   Nicolas Dore   with BTC based server, they were distributing these orders. So I have one with his   golden signature.  

[01:14:18] Unknown:

Cool. So as of now, you have, like, a a shift crypto SSD razor in it. Right?  

[01:14:25] Unknown:

Oh, no. That's something I wanted to come to. And, again, with the next stuff, I'm sorry.   But,   I have 2 of those. One from the hack 0, one I got personally from you, and a hack day in Munich Mhmm.   Which,   I did say that I will once run a server, well, there will be, you know, SSDs in the PCI Express ports, and that that's just what I have put together in last week,   where   on the motherboard, I can just, you know, put these,   PCI Express to NVMe   adapters   and, have much more space. And Mhmm. They are fantastically   fast as well.  

So Cool. Yeah. And I have this shift script to logo on them. So it's   it's it looks really nice.  

[01:15:15] Unknown:

Yeah.   But at at least something came out of that.  

[01:15:20] Unknown:

Well, it's yeah.   You can you can buy these kind of adapters for, like, 4, £5.   So, like, up to $10 or so,   but they don't look as nice.   And they have a for Yeah. They have a different different alignment. They have so if you want to put it on the Rogue Pro   64, then they would stick out on one end, which   which wouldn't be the best. In a motherboard, it's fine.   They would design for that.   But yeah. Yeah. I think that's that's all my comments on the hardware.  

[01:15:52] Unknown:

Cool. Yeah. So coming back, I think, the Raspberry Pi is just like a pretty   well   vetted and very reliable,   piece of   cheap hardware.   So it's probably not for, like, huge servers,   but in my experience, it's the most stable one. And   the problem is when we when we started building the Bitbox base,   the Raspberry Pi 4 wasn't out. So it wasn't even announced. So we had to look for something else.   Yeah. And but but looking back now, I probably would just build on the Raspberry Pi 4.  

[01:16:29] Unknown:

Yeah. The, yeah, the the other big drawback of the Raspberry   Pi is that closed source   kind of GPU  

[01:16:38] Unknown:

Yep. That's true. OS  

[01:16:39] Unknown:

called ThreadX   owned by Microsoft.   And   it's just running as a binary blob underneath,   which is not true to the old droid   or the old either the oldroids or the old pro,   single board computers.   So, I mean, that that is something which we just need to kind of live with. It's a trade off.   There is no fully open source hardware at all, but this is a bit less open source than the others.   I mean, here, the software is not fully open source either, the, operating system itself.   So there's something to keep in mind if you want to go   on the full verification   route.  



[01:17:27] Unknown:

Yep.   That's,   I think there there are quite a few points that can be improved maybe over time.  

[01:17:34] Unknown:

Do you think that,   that becomes an even larger concern as as it becomes,   more common for people to be running Bitcoin nodes on their SPA's.   Like, I feel like it's   you know, one of   the often cited advantages   is that it's off the shelf parts.   It's not Bitcoin specific, but, you know, when we start hitting numbers like 10,000, 20,000   Bitcoin nodes running on RASPIs,   doesn't that argument kinda get thrown out the window?  

[01:18:07] Unknown:

I think that's why it's most important to offer alternatives.   Like, there is this old rate chapter in the in the guide as we do with the as well for I even released a couple of, like, SD card images for these older it's, which I've used still using one myself.   And and then scale out and, you know, use   every kind of thing which can run Linux, basically.   And and aim and work for for fully open source hardware, which is, you know, something   or or at least different approaches and different architectures.   I think that's the solution. You cannot rely on on the adjustment, the Raspberry Pi, I don't think. And we shouldn't   give the impression that we are doing this.  



[01:18:55] Unknown:

Yeah. That's a good point.   So   about security,   if if you allow me to go back to the guide.   Please. After installing   the the operating system, I think the one chapter that I feel is   the most   underrepresented   with other projects   is how to actually secure your like, the platform itself.   So the Raspberry Bolt guides   immediately recommends you to,   create your own SSH login keys. So there's, like, a passwordless   login.   You enable the firewall.   There's, like, a   fail to ban that does, like,   rate limiting on on login trials and stuff like that.   And   one thing I feel is sometimes overlooked as well even for local network use is that I think everything that is transmitted over the Internet or   to a browser, let's say, like that,   if it contains, like, sensitive information, it probably should go over h d GPS.  

So not in plain text.   So it also immediately makes you install NGINX   reverse proxy,   server   that can then be used by all other applications   like,   write the lightning or mempool or whatever you use.   I think the drawback is that some from time to time, you get some scary warnings in the browser because you don't have, like, your official own domain with a proper SSL certificate.   So the browser cannot really verify   if the,   the the certificate is is valid.   But if you accept it once usually,   then the browser   stores that certificate, and then you have a, like, fully end to end encrypted   communication   with your pi even   with the browser.  

So I it always made me look really cringe if you, like, log in to   a ready made,   full note. And it   sometimes actually showed your seed words, which is, like, super bad in the browser   over in in not even through SSL   or made you log in without   2FA or anything,   just like transmitting the password over clear text for every   smart fridge to to see? Yeah.  

[01:21:30] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. These these chapters, again, it's something, you know, which you can come back to anytime when you're setting up a a Linux server. Best practice is   to, you know, you run to VPS   and then what to do with it. I mean, these steps should be done on every kind of computer where you run anything   or or which has access to your network, which does have   computers, which don't do run anything. So it is,   it is a great part and very important.   SSL is absolutely and the and the   self signed certificate question, I mean, this is because you are not reaching out for a third party   to verify this   certificate with them or kind of or, like, ask the permission for   of a third party to use that certificate.  

So then your browser won't be able to check with that third party that this is this is something official,   in quotes.   But then if you compare the numbers,   the fingerprints   can be verified, which   fingerprint you can   see on your machine serving the web page, and then you can compare it to the fingerprint which appears in your browser, which you can just see on that,   there is usually,   like, a lock icon next to the URL,   where you can see the certificate   and the details of the fingerprint.   That one you can compare to the to the server in your control, and then you can be completely   sure that it is coming from that place. It's similar as, similar to, like, verifying the signal or, like, a matrix peer.  

Mhmm. But it happens with emojis in matrix, for example, isn't it?   So yeah.   Nice.  

[01:23:13] Unknown:

Yeah. And I think one   thing that we,   really,   narrowed the guide towards is that the the whole Raspberry Bolt,   node now   only,   runs over the Tor network.   So not every communication goes over Tor, but everything that is Bitcoin specific like lightning,   bitcoin, also all the remote login,   all the connections coming from the outside,   everything goes over Tor.   And   this is, of course, for privacy reasons.   We don't want to advertise   our own IP address, which can be geolocated   and tell the world, hey. At this house, there's there's somebody with Bitcoin.   But it's also if if I think back,   when people wanted to connect to their lightning note with there's, like, the the the universal plug and play   option in LME,   which mostly didn't work,   depending on your network setup.  

It was, like, just a huge pain to   manually configure your router,   do, like, the   the dynamic   IP setup that you can actually reach   your own node   in your home   from the outside world,   basically going through your own router and then back to the node.   And this is so much easier if you just use Tor   because Tor just like calls from your notes to the outside world   into the Tor network.   It has its own,   onion address,   and that doesn't change. And everything is end to end encrypted in any case. So it's it's not only secure and, like, more private, but also much, much,   more user friendly   to to connect to your own node from anywhere.  



[01:25:10] Unknown:

Like, UX wise, it's it's extremely easy.   You don't have to do any, like, port forwarding or anything on your router. Exactly.   But it's worth noting that,   Tor does have some reliability issues. So,   you will experience those from time to time, and it can be quite slow.  

[01:25:31] Unknown:

I didn't have a full   I think I was always able to reach my note, but you're right. From time to time, it can be very slow.   And that can of course, if you're using, like, a web interface that with a lot of connections   a lot of images and stuff that can be very serious.   But, also, if you connect, like, your your wallet to your own Electrum server, If it needs to look up a lot of,   addresses and stuff like that, that is significantly slower than using just like a plain net,   electron server. That's true.  

[01:26:09] Unknown:

Yeah. When you are using the terminal, we can   feel the lag of typing. Yeah. True.  

[01:26:17] Unknown:

And now even, like, SSH over Tor is is in the standard guide. So you can log in to your command line from everywhere.   It's surprisingly easy.  

[01:26:28] Unknown:

Mhmm. But it's it's it's worth to note that it's also it's easy, but it's same easy for everyone else who knows that hidden address.   So when when it does leak,   that information somehow,   like, you were using a a couple of versions back. You were using Mhmm. The Brave Browser, for example, which then pinged the clear net DNS server   with the only an address.   So publicized it to the ISP or the VPN provider,   then, you know, someone else can kind of,   try to guess your password   or or the password   of the service, which is which is running behind that, hidden service.   I mean, there are ways to   use key authentication   with Tor as well just like with SSH.  

It's a bit more kind of cumbersome, but if you're like using   using SSH, you already should use key authentication.   So just to be aware that this is like a public domain.   Like, having an Internet address   is just  

[01:27:35] Unknown:

it it's just running through the Tor network, which has I mean, there's a twist there. Right? Because it's it's I mean, it could be thought of similar to, like, Bitcoin keys, right, where it's it's locally generated.   Yes. There are so many possibilities that we can It's unguessable.   Right. No one can well, we can assume that no one has the capability of brute forcing   that,   specific onion address. But if it leaks, then you have you have issues on your hand because other people can use that onion address, and you wanna make sure that whatever authentication that is, if it's a strong password or whatnot,   that that is is secure enough that you're not gonna get brute force at that point.  



[01:28:17] Unknown:

Absolutely. This is also why it's passwordless login through, like, SSH keys only.   And the   that has failed to ban. I think if you try to log in   10 times in 5 minutes or so, you're just, like, immediately banned for 10 minutes or so.   So I would say SSH   itself is probably very secure.   Like, it's it's pretty common to have this port exposed.   But, of course, everything else should be secure as well. And I I think I read a a question in the very beginning why,   every web service   is now, like, separated and segregated into its own,   Linux user.  

And   it it's not a perfect   protection,   but let's say   somebody   would,   find   a vulnerability   in, I don't know, whatever   whatever web service is reachable over Tor   and could gain access to to stuff it shouldn't have,   like SQL injection or whatever.   But that breach would still then be contained in this one   non root user   That that might be able to, for example, query Bitcoin Core, but it wouldn't have right access to anything.   So if an attacker would somehow get into,   your note, and I think every web service is a probably   is is a is a is a potential vulnerability.  

It it still should be contained in that specific user, which basically doesn't have   right access to anything. It might be able to query some stuff, but it cannot do much damage.  

[01:30:06] Unknown:

Well, I and we could go with an example of, like, RTL, which is has its own user, the right lightning interface, which is awesome. And I'm I'm no way saying it's it's vulnerable,   but, you know, in a hypothetical   scenario,   if it would be. And   then   the attacker would possibly be able to extract the admin macaroon, for example, of to gain access to the funds on lightning. But,   I mean,   you wouldn't be able to access the other users, which, for example, there could be another hot wallet, for example, join markets running on the node,   under a separate user   with hot funds and keys there as well,   I mean, there is some protection,   against   that by   separating into different users,   especially if, you know, they have, like, web services running as well.  



[01:31:03] Unknown:

Yeah. Exactly. And I think this it's it's not perfect. It's not a silver bullet, but it's it's just best practice.   And I think the   because this is, like, handled directly by the operating system itself,   the the protection against, like, breaking out of that user is is much higher than, for example,   than   being able to break out of a Docker container,   which   many assume Docker is somehow, like, almost like a virtual machine   and give some security protection.   But because Docker actually runs as a pseudo user,   if you're able to break out of a Docker,   container,   that can be pretty serious.  

So it's it's not really a security solution.   But I also need to say that I'm not no way an expert Docker expert. So Yeah. Yes. It's same as me. And I think most of these,  

[01:31:58] Unknown:

including,   you know, the user   separation and Docker containers,   system d services, and everything else, it depends a lot on how you use them.   And what we can do is is kind of provide the best   practices   as there is,   to,   you know, to use the tools available the best possible way.   You can   so, yeah, none of them are are are silver bullets, but,   you can do the job well.  

[01:32:35] Unknown:

So well, we already spent, like,   almost   1 and a half hours, and we're only in the preparation phase of the guide.   I mean,   as a quick overview,   now that the system is, like, ready, it's it's basically a a vanilla server now. It has everything that you need to run additional applications on that server.   And from it there, the guide goes on. You   download and   verify very, very importantly.   It explains exactly   step by step how you can verify,   the signatures of Bitcoin Core so that you know that   the Bitcoin Core you downloaded and are going to run is actually the official   vetted,   built of Bitcoin Core.  

This   will sync with the whole network, download   the blockchain. Of course, you I guess everybody here knows that.   And on top of that,   we installed the Electrum Elektra's server.   So that actually makes it possible to then connect any,   wallet   to your own full node,   that supports the Electrum,   protocol,   be it harder wallets or,   any other third party wallet.   And very important for privacy reasons,   there's also the Bitcoin Explorer. Like, it's a   a minimal,   very lightweight,   Bitcoin blockchain explorer.   So you can actually look up everything, every block, every transaction   directly on your note. Because, otherwise, if you just go to any public,   blockchain explorer, of course, you're leaking a lot of private information   of what you're interested in. And   these third parties can then connect multiple addresses you with your IP address and all that stuff.  

So this is this is where I come from. The Bitcoin part is really, really important for me. And once that is really set up,   the default,   lightning   client that is used is lnd,   which is pretty straightforward to set up.   And we also install right the lightning to actually make it manageable   through the browser. So you can manage your   lightning node, all the channels, everything.   And but this is just, like, the the core guide, the standard as it is now. There are many   bonus   guides.   There's are many   open poll requests actually for additional bonus guides for sea lightning,   for thunder hop,   for many other   applications   that we would like to include.  

The goal is to have, like, one,   like, pretty minimal standard configuration,   but then you can put everything you want on top of that. So for example, join market or,   via guard VPN. We have an open pool request. Thunderhub, mempool,   bisque,   various management scripts, all that stuff.   And I think,   I mentioned that   it started as a, like, a personal project.   But I'm basically   I couldn't manage all the the contributions,   all the the issues anymore. And this is why   I now this is more this has transformed to a community project.   There are multiple maintainers now and many people   answering   all questions on GitHub.  

And   I think   one thing is, telling that more people are actually interested in writing even more additional   bonus guides,   and we severely lack reviewers.   So if anyone here   is interested in   trying out some new stuff,   giving feedback on new bonus guides, that that'd be really a a great help.   Because in the end, if everybody's writing guides and I need to review review them all in the end,   that's not really going to scale.  

[01:37:07] Unknown:

Yeah. I do like the how the community has has been built.   Like,   really   I mean, there are some   names   we mentioned, like, definitely, like,   colleague under under the pseudonym of, like, Pillars of Indra. He's, like, coordinating lots of,  

[01:37:29] Unknown:

Yeah. Like, weekly reviews How about the chat?  

[01:37:32] Unknown:

Yeah. Exactly.   Weekly reviews on the r   slash recipe board on on,   Reddit, that is.   And there is this Telegram group   called the recipe board as well, which has   has picked up a lot of activity in the past couple of months, really. And I've been enjoying,   you know, lurking in there as well because, I mean, obviously,   there are a lot of solutions which, you know, I do learn from people who   trying to set up   their own note from the scratch.   And then,   you know, I do apply it myself as well.   So, yeah, it it it's worse to join these even if you are, you know, working with some other kind of system. Like, for example, verifying   the Bitcoin core signature or the other binaries,   PGP verification   is really something you can just come to when you are setting up   your Bitcoin node on your laptop and just wonder, oh, how how how how is how was that that I should verify this? And then you can go to the website,   and it's there.  

That's, yeah, that's been a slight disconnected from the   comment from the community. I just wanted to note that, it's just so useful.  

[01:38:50] Unknown:

Absolutely. And   fun thing, for for a long time, I didn't even know there was a, a Raspberry Bolt subreddit   until they pinged me. So it it already had, like, over a 100 subscribers before I actually   got aware of it. That's awesome.   Gotta love when that just happens organically. Yeah. And I I cannot shout out enough to Indra and how he manages that stuff. He that's really awesome.  

[01:39:23] Unknown:

Great.   I mean, this has been a fantastic conversation.   We're about to hit an hour and 40 minutes.   Do you guys have anything else you wanna discuss before we wrap it up?  

[01:39:37] Unknown:

Do we have a hard limits here?  

[01:39:39] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, let's I'm I'm aiming for the top of the hour, so we got 13 minutes. We got some time.  

[01:39:49] Unknown:

So I don't have anything pressing for me. It was it's it's a pleasure to to be here, talk with you, Matt, and,   open almost and   make, a little bit of noise for the recipe bolt guide. It's like my   my brainchild   that's that has now grown wings and is   I'm actually also happy that it's no longer only on my shoulders. So that's that's really good.   And, yeah, I mean,   anybody who's interested in, actually learning how a node works, I think it's a good place to stop by, have a look, maybe join the Telegram group or the subreddit.   And if you want to go ahead and try some stuff,   it's it's it's actually fun.  

Don't be afraid of the command line.  

[01:40:38] Unknown:

It's good to to be overwhelmed. It's it's more accessible than than you would expect.   I mean, I appreciate you both. I appreciate your work. It sounded to me like Open Arms had something you wanted to talk about. You got something for us, Open Arms?  

[01:40:53] Unknown:

Well, I just keep commenting   as things come   up. You know, these are my favorite topics, so definitely.  

[01:41:03] Unknown:

Live and breathe.  

[01:41:06] Unknown:

No. I mean, this has been fantastic.   I guess let's just end it with some final thoughts. Final thoughts, open arms.   Hit us.  

[01:41:17] Unknown:

Run your nose   and use it.  

[01:41:23] Unknown:

Yes. I love it. Short and sweet. Thank you.   Staticus, final thoughts.  

[01:41:30] Unknown:

I cheer for every note that is actually, like, used in the wild,   be it for lightning   or   I think   all sometimes overlooked   even more importantly to verify your own, like, large transactions coming in,   typically going to hardware wallets.   So having your own   definite truth of   what's the state of the blockchain. And if you actually got   genuine Bitcoin, I think that's something every true Bitcoiner should be able to do.  

[01:42:04] Unknown:

Thank you, Statikis.   Yes. To interact with the Bitcoin network, you're gonna need to use a Bitcoin node. If you're not using your own Bitcoin node, you're using someone else's Bitcoin node and you're trusting them with your privacy   and verification of your Bitcoin. Whether that is real Bitcoin, whether the rules that you think the network is following are actually being followed.   That is enforced by the node that you are using. So if you're using someone else's node,   you are trusting them with that responsibility.   With all that said, this was an absolutely fantastic   conversation. I wanna thank our guests once again.  

I hope to have you both back on at some time soon.   Open Arms, I think you're number 1 most   you you've been on the show more than anyone else besides me.   So I really do appreciate you taking the time out to to come on every time,   and I look forward to whatever interesting topic,   our next conversation will be based on.   As always, I wanna thank the freaks for joining us, for this conversation. I hope you all enjoyed it. Your feedback is always appreciated. You can contact me,   via   all my contact information is at mattodel.com.   You can support the show and see previous episodes at silldispatch.com.  

You can also support the show via merch,   at silodispatch.com/stack.   With all that said, I love you all.   Thank you, guys. Cheers.  

[01:43:34] Unknown:

Cheers. It's been a pleasure. Yeah. Thanks a lot. It's Sandro again.  

[01:47:46] Unknown:

Love you, freaks. Hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.   I'll see you up for rabbit hole recap on Thursday at 2:30 EST, 19:30   UTC,   and we have another Citadel dispatch on Tuesday 18th   at 5 EST, 22 100 UTC. That's gonna be a really fun conversation on KYC and different trade offs with Zelco, Diverter, LaserHodl,   and Stefan Lovera, so make sure to tune in for that. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun and a good discussion.   As many of you know, I've been helping   Bitcoin Magazine,   put together their upcoming Bitcoin conference,   April 6th through 9th   in Miami.  

Just a little heads up that prices do increase on Friday.   So if you haven't bought a ticket, you're considering doing it, you know, I am helping them   significantly with the programming for the open source stage. There's gonna be a lot of really good discussions there,   both on the 2 GA days, but also on industry day. Before the 2 GA days, we're going to be doing a very highly technical   focused discussions.   That's gonna be almost bit dev style. So if you haven't bought a ticket, you're considering buying a ticket, I was able to secure us, the code open source.   Do not share that code on Twitter.  

I do not get a cut from that code.   It all goes to you. It's a full 21% off. So do not share it on Twitter. Otherwise,   they told me they will disable it. So cheers.   Love you all. Stay on with Stacks ads.